


Poorly Masked

by MidwesternDuchess



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Character Study, F/M, post-reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-05-29 14:43:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6380404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MidwesternDuchess/pseuds/MidwesternDuchess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Tear off the mask. Your face is glorious." -Rumi<br/> </p><p> <br/>  <i>(A project on influential Parisians goes awry when a particular polka-dotted superhero is chosen as the subject. Post-Reveal)</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Poorly Masked

Alya stops Marinette outside the classroom, eyes wide, mouth open.

_“Ladybug,”_ she gasps, seizing her friend by the shoulders.

Marinette’s stomach bottoms out.

Luckily, her salvation comes in the same form it always seems to—Adrien Agreste—who eases his way into Marinette’s line of sight, giving her a small smile.

“We just got assigned a project,” he explains. “We have to pick an influential Parisian and do a report on them.”

_“Ladybug,”_ Alya repeats, giving her friend a little shake for emphasis.

Marinette snaps her gaze over to Adrien, who is just barely hiding a grin.

“Oh,” she remarks stiffly, still giving her partner a cool glance. “Are we sure there’s nobody we could pick who’s more…documented? Nobody really knows that much about Ladybug.”

Alya physically _droops_ at her words. “What? But, the Ladyblog is full of good information!”

Marinette curses herself, shifting her gaze back to her friend’s. “Of course, of course,” she hastens to say, forcing a cheery grin. She pats Alya’s hand reassuringly were the other girl still grips her shoulders. “Sorry, Alya. You guys just kind of sprung this on me…” she trails off, arching an eyebrow. “Do I get any say?”

Because—as long as she’s being honest—presenting a detailed report on her alter-ego isn’t the best thing for her secret identity. She might as well put together a list titled _Top Ten People Who Are Definitely **Not** Ladybug._

Alya frowns again, dropping her arms and stepping back. “Well, we can put it to a vote,” she suggests uncertainly. “But Adrien swore you’d be okay with choosing Ladybug.”

Marinette’s eyes are on Adrien’s in a _second_ —her gaze sharp and accusatory. He gives her a smirk that practically screams Chat Noir behind Alya’s back.

“Yeah?” she asks, still staring him down.

_You are **so** going to pay for this later,_ her glare warns.

_Totally worth it,_ his grin replies.

“Yeah,” he answers casually.

Marinette forces herself to look back at Alya, who has mercifully taken out her phone and missed the brief bout of angry charades that just went down.

“It’s fine,” she eventually sighs, already decided she’s going to make Adrien do this entire project for the trouble he’s caused her. Alya’s face lights up and Marinette’s heart warms at the sight. “So I’m guessing it’s the usual suspects? You, me, Adrien, and Nino?”

Alya nods eagerly, launching into one of her classic rants that bypasses any form of punctuation. “Yes! Okay, so at first we wanted to do Emma Watson because like _hello_ feminist icon and all but then we started thinking—”

Marinette shamelessly tunes her friend out, turning to give Adrien another look.

He flashes her a grin and slips away while Marinette waits patiently for her friend to finish.

_Chat had better hope he’s got nine lives,_ she thinks, crossing her arms as Alya gushes about Yo-Yo Ma. _Because he’s about to lose one of them._

-0-

“Never. Never in my _life_ am I going to miss class again.”

Chat chuckles beside her, smirking as he twirls his baton in his fingers. The pair have taken to Paris’ rooftops for the afternoon. There’s no need for any kind of _patrol_ —the police handle any non-akuma related crime perfectly well without them—but it’s an excuse to indulge in the liberating freedom of their alter-egos, and so if the weather is fair and their kwami are in a certain mood, they watch the lively streets of Paris from three stories in the air, feet dangling casually off the side of the roof.

Ladybug scowls at him, reaching out to punch him lightly on the arm. “Seriously, Chat? _Ladybug?_ Do you know how _embarrassing—?”_

_“Relax,_ my lady,” he soothes her, and she rolls her eyes at the smooth, velvety edge of his words. It’s almost a _purr._ “I’ve got it handled.”

She frowns, but it holds no heat. “That’s why I’m worried.”

He leans away from her, mouth falling open as he places a clawed hand over his heart. “You don’t trust me?” he asks, words dripping with feigned affront.

She flicks one of his curved cat ears before dropping her arms back in her lap, staring out at the cityscape. “We all know the answer to that one, kitty,” she reminds him simply, and he sobers at her words.

If Ladybug had her way—which she very rarely does because that’s just a fact of her life she’s grown to accept—Chat Noir would have no idea who she is.

And it’s not because she doesn’t trust him. She does. _Implicitly._ It has nothing to do with him and everything to do with her. Her own insecurities and worries and uncertainties. She’s not stupid—she knows Chat had looked at Ladybug like she hung the _moon_ in the sky. How could she live up to such expectations?

It had been awkward at first. She hadn’t spoken to him for a full week after her accidental reveal—which he’d answered with a reveal of his own—and Marinette and Adrien had stared at each other in stunned silence before Marinette had reclaimed her transformation and straight _bolted._

But, gradually, things evened out. The awkwardness drifted off. Their easy banter returned. They both put aside their personal feelings, deciding that the safety of Paris trumped anything else.

They were still Adrien and Marinette. It’s just sometimes they’re also Chat Noir and Ladybug and flip across rooftops while fighting akumas. That’s all.

And they kinda like each other. Maybe. A little bit. Maybe a little bit more than a little bit. But that’s a different reveal for a different time.

“Ladybug,” he says softly, and she glances up at him, eyebrow raised questioningly. “If it bothers you that much…”

She gives him an easy smile and he trails off. “It’s fine, Chat. Honestly, it’s probably better this way. It would be more suspicious if I said I _didn’t_ want to do a report on her. Besides, with Alya running things, we probably won’t even have to do anything.”

He nods, appeased by her simple and steadfast assurances.

She rises to her feet. “I’ll text Alya later. We can meet up at my parent’s bakery when it closes and get started.” She runs a gloved through her hair, blowing out a breath as she studies the skyline. “The sooner we get this over with, the better.”

“Don’t worry.” Ladybug glances down with amusement as Chat stretches out into the space she’d been sitting, tail blowing in the breeze as he tucks his hands behind his head. _Lazy cat,_ she thinks wryly. “I have it on good authority there’s this _dashing_ blond who’s going to show up.” He tips her a wink. “I’ve heard he’s got a knack for redirecting conversations.”

She snorts at this, placing her hand on her hips. “I’ve heard he’s got a knack for getting into trouble,” she remarks, eyes dancing with humor.

“I’ve heard Adrien Agreste’s got an eight pack,” Chat calls, closing his eyes to soak up the afternoon sun as Ladybug turns to leave. He hears her chuckle and a smirk curves his lips beneath his mask. “That Adrien Agreste’s _shredded.”_

_“Enough, Chat,”_ she calls back to him. But he can hear the smile in her voice.

-0-

“God, what a horrible angle,” Marinette mutters, frowning as she examines the photo.

“Did you say something?” Alya asks curiously, looking up at her friend.

Marinette flushes, realizing she’d spoken her thoughts aloud, and swiftly shakes her head. “Oh, no,” she says quickly, pushing the snapshot of Ladybug across the table and reaching for her laptop.

She catches Adrien’s gaze as she lifts the lid of her computer and he smirks at her.

_Smooth,_ his arched eyebrow says.

_Shut it, kitty,_ her frown says back.

“So I think we’ve got a pretty good starting point, thanks to the Ladyblog,” Nino says, scrolling through his tablet. Alya beams at the compliment. “But I’m with Marinette. How are we going to come up with enough information to put together a full report?”

“We can focus on things that she’s done,” Adrien suggests. “You know, all of her and Chat’s documented accomplishments.”

Alya worries her lip. “Yeah, but our project isn’t about Chat Noir,” she points out.

“True,” Adrien allows with a nod. Marinette can _feel_ his grin and stares determinedly at her laptop screen. “But they’re sort of a package deal, wouldn’t you say?”

_“Anyway,”_ Marinette cuts in, effectively derailing that train of thought. “If we want to do it chronologically, their first akuma was Stormy Weather, followed by the Bubbler and then Copycat.”

“Are you on the Ladyblog too?” Nino asks, leaning to peer over Marinette’s shoulder. He frowns when he sees her blank Word document, glancing sideways at her. “Do you…do you have that all memorized?”

Adrien’s cough sounds suspiciously like a laugh and heat rises in Marinette’s cheeks. “Well, watching Paris get attacked by crazy villains is kind of memorable!” she defends herself.

Nino’s eyebrows rise to his hairline. “Marinette, are you a Ladybug _fan?”_

Marinette’s eyes go wide as she tries to sputter out an excuse, when Adrien finally decides to take the heat off his partner.

“Now, come on, Nino,” he drawls, drawing attention away from a very red-faced Marinette. “You can’t go saying stuff like that. Not with the biggest Ladybug fan in Paris sitting across the table from you.”

Alya hums with content, lifting her chin just a little higher as she continues typing away at her laptop.

“Possibly the biggest fan worldwide,” she brags. “The Ladyblog tracks where visitors are from. I’ve gotten hits from people in _Zaire.”_

Marinette’s eyes drop back to the earlier photograph, trying not to squirm at the thought of so many people seeing such a heinous photo of her.

Alya then turns her laptop around to show them what she’s put together in terms of their project's visual component—Marinette manages to convince her that eleven pictures of Ladybug is _too many_ —and she catches Adrien’s eye as her friend chatters on.

_Thanks,_ her small smile says.

_Anytime,_ his answering wink replies.

-0-

“Are you ever going to tell them?” Adrien asks.

Marinette tips her head skyward, clasping her hand together behind her back. She knows exactly what he’s talking about.

“I don’t think so,” she answers. “Not unless I have to. Hawk Moth will do anything to get his hands on our Miraculous.”

“Including hurting Alya and Nino,” Adrien agrees grimly, shifting the strap of his backpack as the walk.

“Honestly, seeing them as akuma was bad enough,” she murmurs, frowning at the memories of the Bubbler and Lady Wifi. “I don’t think I could handle anything else.” She chuckles, shaking her head. “It was bad enough trying to explain to Alya why I could suddenly string a coherent sentence together around you.”

He laughs at that, and she’s pleased to have pulled him out of whatever mood had grabbed him when they’d said goodbye to Nino and Alya.

“I _still_ say if it weren’t for your shyness, I would have known it was you _immediately,”_ he insists.

She rolls her eyes fondly. Not this again. “Give me a break, Adrien. You were just as clueless as I was.”

“Yes, but if you’d just _talked_ to me.”

_“You_ could have talked to _me.”_

“You wouldn’t have talked _back.”_

She bumps her shoulder against his good-naturedly, and he chuckles.

“I was starting to take it personally,” Adrien teases her lightly. “I was the only one you wouldn’t talk to!”

She sighs, shaking her head. “Adrien…”

“You talked to _Chloé_ more than you talked to me.”

_“Adrien.”_

He smirks, finally dropping the issue. They round the corner, and Adrien sees his house loom at the end of the street. Their walk is almost over. A thought occurs to him.

“What _did_ make you tell me?” he asks, frowning as he considers it. He glances down at her. “I mean, what changed?”

Marinette hums thoughtfully. “I guess I just got tired,” she says after a moment. She taps a finger to her chin as they stop at Adrien’s front door.

Adrien blinks in bewilderment. “Tired?” he repeats. “Of what?”

He turns back to look at her, one hand on the doorknob, and she offers him one of those slow, small smiles that he _swears_ is meant for him and him alone.

“I got tired of hiding stuff from my best friend.” She shrugs lightly. “I…I didn’t want you to think Ladybug was some great, infallible superhero. She’s in high school. She wants to be a fashion designer. She’s kind of a mess.” Marinette smiles. “I just wanted you to get the whole picture.”

Adrien stares at her, utterly dumbfounded. He opens his mouth, but no sound accompanies the movement, and he can only stand there, slack-jawed.

She smirks at his reaction, eyes sparking with mischief.

“Cat got your tongue?” she teases lightly.

He snaps his mouth shut, frowning at her. “I only used so many puns because I wanted you to like me,” he reminds her. They’ve been over this a hundred times. “You can’t use that against me.”

“Too late,” she smiles, tipping him a wink that leaves him fairly breathless, before she turns smartly on her heel to stride back to her parent’s bakery, a distinct spring in her step.

**Author's Note:**

> _Yeah they call the show Miraculous because it’s going to be a fucking miracle if these two ever figure out each other’s identity._
> 
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> Post-reveal fun. I kind of want to rewrite this where they don’t know each other’s identity. Maybe even a short one-shot of the presentation?
> 
> I have this headcanon that Adrien and Marinette have this like, unspoken language between them. Idk maybe I’m weird.
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> _Adrien applies internet memes to real life conversation pass it on_


End file.
